San Diego  More than a year after criminal charges against six former members of the San Diego pension board were dropped, a court battle has started over the $5.4 million in legal fees owed to the defendants’ attorneys in the case.

The dispute turns on how the courts will interpret an unusual 2002 resolution the City Council approved. It promised that the city would indemnify pension board members who might be sued over their support of a plan that allowed the city to put less money into the pension system than required.

The lawyers who defended the six former members contend the resolution means the city should pay their attorney fees.

But lawyers with the City Attorney’s Office say the resolution was intended only to cover legal costs for civil lawsuits — not criminal charges. They say the city has no obligation under state law or the city resolution to pay for the legal defense in the criminal case.

After the city rejected their claim for payment, the six former board members — Cathy Lexin, Ronald Saathoff, John Torres, Mary Vattimo, Teresa Webster and Sharon Wilkinson — filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court.

Judge William Dato issued the first ruling in the case on May 13. He rejected the city’s bid to dismiss the suit on several grounds, saying the city’s argument that the resolution covered only “claims” and “lawsuits” was too narrow.

Dato also said that the city contends the “genesis and history” of the resolution shows that it was intended only to apply to civil lawsuits, and that comments from a 2002 retirement board hearing where the resolution was discussed show that is true.

The judge said there is not yet any proof that those comments were communicated to the City Council, which passed the crucial resolution.

Gina Coburn, a spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s Office, said that Dato’s ruling comes very early in the case over the disputed legal fees, before any evidence has been developed or submitted, and at a point when the judge has to assume the allegations made in the lawsuit are true.

“We expect to provide factual evidence when we get to that stage of the case,” Coburn said in an email response when asked about the ruling.

That would include seeking testimony from members of the City Council in 2002 as to what they intended the resolution to cover, and also testimony from Casey Gwinn, the city attorney in 2002, she said.

The former pension board members had also said in their suit that the attorney fees should be paid under a state law that gives governments the discretion to cover legal bills for employees charged in criminal cases.

Dato, however, rejected that and ruled in favor of the city in that part of the suit.

In 2005, six members of the pension board were charged by District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis with violating the state conflict-of-interest law. Prosecutors said they approved the deal to underfund the pension system in return for enhanced retirement benefits.

Five years later, the charges were dropped in the wake of a state Supreme Court decision in 2010 that said the board members actions were allowed under certain exemptions to the conflict-of-interest law.

Frank Vecchione, the lawyer for former city auditor Webster, said that the indemnification resolution has been found to cover legal costs in prior civil lawsuits that the board members had to defend.

He said Dato’s decision refers to those cases, as well as efforts made by former City Attorney Michael Aguirre to get the City Council to rescind the resolution in 2006 and 2007 because he believed it would require the city to pay for defense costs in the criminal case. The council did not follow that advice and left the resolution intact.

“We think the indemnification resolution is mandatory,” Vecchione said. “We don’t know what other factual issues there are in the case.”

The fees cover only the criminal case filed in state court. Webster, Saathoff and Lexin were also charged in a separate federal case which was also dismissed.